There is a reason why the phrase "the NFL is a quarterback-driven league" is uttered ad nauseum throughout any football season.

It's because that statement is 100 percent true.

Going into the final week of the season, the top seven-rated quarterbacks in the league have their teams in the postseason or positioned to clinch a berth with a regular season-ending win.

On the other hand, you've got the Arizona Cardinals, who have struggled to get quality play from the signal callers they've used this season. Kevin Kolb did a decent job in his five starts, but since his injury in Week 6 against the Buffalo Bills, it's been a nightmare.

"It's no secret, we haven't got the production out of that position that we've needed," Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt said this week. "We've got to get consistency out of that position."

Since Kolb's injury, Arizona quarterbacks have completed only 53.7 percent of their passes for 1,840 yards and only two touchdowns against 16 interceptions. They've combined for a QB rating of 51.44.

So Whisenhunt is turning to Brian Hoyer to provide some consistency this week against the San Francisco 49ers. Hoyer, who played most of the second half of last Sunday's loss to the Chicago Bears, will make his first NFL start and become the Cardinals' fourth different starter this season.

It's the first time the Cardinals have been pressed to use four starters in a season, and only the 20th time it's happened in the league since the AFL merger. The 2008 Cleveland Browns were the last team forced to use four starters in a season when they used Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn, Ken Dorsey and Bruce Gradkowski to navigate through a 4-12 season. See, it's not exactly the company you want to be keeping.

Fourteen of the 20 teams in the "four-starter club" finished with losing records. Four teams, however, overcame their QB difficulty and made the playoffs. The 1988 Browns, 2003 Broncos, 1984 and 1986 Bears qualified for the postseason -- that '86 Chicago team went 14-2!